An Evaluation of a Mobile Application Designed to Teach Receptive Language Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a mobile application, Camp Discovery, designed to teach receptive language skills to children with autism spectrum disorder based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. Participants (N = 28) were randomly assigned to an immediate-treatment or a delayed-treatment control group. The treatment group made significant gains, p < .001, M = 58.1, SE = 7.54, following 4 weeks of interaction with the application as compared to the control group, M = 8.4, SE = 2.13. Secondary analyses revealed significant gains in the control group after using the application and maintenance of acquired skills in the treatment group after application usage was discontinued. Findings suggest that the application effectively teaches the targeted skills.Keywords Autism spectrum disorder . Applied behavior analysis . Computer-based intervention . Mobile application . Technology Advancements in technology continue to transform day-today living for individuals across populations, including individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The use of technology to assist individuals with ASD has been investigated in a variety of capacities, including augmented and alternative communication (Still, Rehfeldt, Whelan, May, & Dymond, 2014); prompting tools to assist with organization, self-management, time management, and task completion

Mobile device applications and treatment of autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of effectiveness

“…The fourth RCT study compared groups that used two free and open-source apps—one based on high-tech speech generating device and another based on augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)—in terms of improvement in communication and social skills by measuring communication rates 21. The fifth RCT studied a receptive language app called Camp Discovery by measuring the number of known targets 22. The sixth RCT study compared the communication rates and responses between a group that used an app based on speech-generating device and a usual care group 23.…”

Development of a Mobile App to Improve Numeracy Skills of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Participatory Design and Usability Study

“…We used coins and voices to keep the children focused. This was used as a reinforcement, as positive reinforcement has been utilized to keep children motivated during learning [ 7 , 69 ]. A study by Tzanakaki et al [ 70 ] reported that succeeding in teaching numeracy to children with ASD requires the use of various models that help students to stay focused.…”

“…Computer-based interventions available on mobile devices improve the learning of children with ASD even when they are used with minimal supervision [ 7 ]. Different studies have suggested that electronic devices such as iPads and smartphones installed with assistive apps are effective in teaching children with ASD when additional features such as audio and video are included in the provided content [ 8 ].…”

Technological Evolvement in AAC Modalities to Foster Communications of Verbally Challenged ASD Children: A Systematic Review

“…Incommensurate with research trend, several research studies evaluated mobile application, for instance, the purpose of the research by J. H. Meeks [71] is to determine the effect of AAC application on requesting skills in students with a communication disorder and whether the students with ASD can be taught to use commercial AAC application and the results indicate that both of the student exhibit increase in communication while using iPad based "GoTalk" application and one of the participant demonstrated more occurrence in spoken language. Similarly, the objective of the research by M. N. Novack et al [72], is to evaluate the efficacy of the "Camp Discovery" of responsive language learning in children with This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited.…”